EG01 - When One Door Closes

by Joan Jonker

  Bob’s hand up her dress sent warning signals to Mary’s brain. ‘No!’ Quickly her arm moved from his neck to push his hand away. ‘You mustn’t.’ But Bob was past the point of reason. All he could think of was going away and leaving her. It might be years before he held her in his arms again … if ever! ‘Please, Mary?’ His voice was thick with emotion. ‘I love you so much.’ Mary screwed her eyes up. What he wanted to do was a sin and against everything she’d ever been taught. But she loved him so much she couldn’t bear to refuse him. Sighing deeply, her arms went round his neck and she held him tight.

  The fire had died down, sparing Bob the embarrassment of meeting Mary’s eyes. His hands trembling, he fumbled for his packet of Capstan and struck a match. As he drew hard on the cigarette he recalled snatches of conversation he’d heard between blokes in the barracks. He’d learned that some women didn’t like sex, and that was why a few of the men went with other women. Bob started to tremble inside. After what he’d just done, would Mary’s feeling towards him have changed? He forced himself to turn and ask, ‘All right, love?’

  Racked with guilt and shame, Mary slipped an arm through his. ‘Me mam would kill me if she knew.’

  ‘It’s my fault, love. I shouldn’t have let it happen.’ Bob reached for her hand. ‘I wish we’d got married last time I was on leave.’

  Mary’s laugh was shaky. ‘You’ll have to marry me now to make an honest woman of me.’ Her voice was wistful. ‘I wish you were back in civvie street.’

  ‘Me too! But if everyone felt the same way then Hitler would walk through this country as easily as he’s walked through the rest of Europe.’

  ‘I know, but I’m frightened of anything happening to you.’

  ‘Nothing’s going to happen to me!’ Bob pulled playfully on her hair. ‘With you to come back to, I’ll outrun every German bullet there is. Anyway, what about yourself? It’s not exactly safe around here with bombs dropping every night. Gerry’s after the docks and the munitions factory, and this is not far from either of them. I know Spud Murphy’s worried to death about his family because they live near the docks at the South End. So, while I’m busy looking after meself, will you promise to go to the shelter every time there’s a raid?’

  ‘I don’t have much option with me mam around.’ Mary’s brow creased. ‘I’ve just realised, this is the first night we haven’t had a raid for weeks!’

  Bob chuckled. ‘I gave orders that I didn’t want me leave spoilt.’ He moved his arm from her shoulder and struck a match. ‘Oh, lord, it’s nearly four o’clock! I’ll have to make tracks or I’ll miss the train.’

  ‘Just stay for a few more minutes.’ Mary clung to his arm. ‘We’ve only had a couple of hours and it might be ages before I see you again.’

  ‘I wouldn’t need much persuading, love, so don’t coax me, please!’ Bob prised his arm free. ‘By the time I get cleaned up and have a few minutes with me mam and dad, I’m going to be hard pushed. There’s a tram leaves Fazakerly terminus at five o’clock and it gets here at twenty past. I’ll have to be on that to get to Lime Street station for six.’

  ‘Let me come to the station with you.’ Mary pleaded. ‘At least we’d have a bit more time together.’

  ‘I’m not saying goodbye to you on a crowded station platform.’ Bob stood up and switched the light on. He held her at arm’s length. ‘I don’t want anyone around when I tell you I love you more than anything in the world, and I’ll be counting the days until I’m home again and we can get married.’

  ‘You better had marry me, or I’ll tell me mam and she’ll come after you with a shot gun.’ Mary gazed into the features she knew as well as she knew her own. The thick bushy eyebrows she was always kidding him were long enough to put in curlers. The blue eyes that crinkled up when he laughed or shone with tenderness when he looked at her. He was smiling now, showing the gap where a kick during a football game had robbed him of one of his teeth. Her heart swelled with love as she stood on tiptoe to kiss him. ‘I love you, Bob West.’

  ‘I’d better go! You’re very tempting, Mary Bradshaw,’ Bob reached for the door, ‘and I’m crazy about you.’

  Trained to be careful of the black-out, Mary switched off the light before opening the front door. Standing on the top step, she went to put her arms around Bob’s neck but he gripped her shoulders and held her from him. ‘Don’t forget to go to the shelter when there’s a raid on, d’you hear? Otherwise I’ll be worried to death every time I hear there’s been a raid on Liverpool.’ He bent his head, kissed her briefly, and whispered ‘I love you’, before hurrying away.

  Mary watched till he reached the end of the block, and when he turned and blew her a kiss she blew one in return. Then he was out of sight. Mary stood for a few seconds staring down the deserted street then walked slowly back into the house. Inside, she leaned against the door and closed her eyes. The tears came slowly at first, trickling down her cheeks. Then they were gushing from her eyes as great sobs racked her body. Afraid of waking her mother, she tried to stifle the sound by putting a hand across her mouth. But she felt the beating of her heart was louder than her tears, and she had no control over her heart.

  Chapter Two

  Eileen Gillmoss was joining the end of the bus queue when she saw the familiar figure of Mary in the distance. ‘Blimey! She’s feelin’ energetic!’ Ignoring the curious glances coming her way, she set off after her friend. Puffing and panting she urged her eighteen-stone body forward, but Mary was walking faster and the distance between them grew. ‘She’ll be at the bloody Black Bull before I catch her up.’ Then Mary stopped to look in a shop window and Eileen breathed a sigh of relief. Cupping her hands round her mouth, she bellowed, ‘Hey, kid! Hold yer horses, will yer!’

  Mary turned. She could see Eileen’s face red with exertion as her huge body waddled from side to side. ‘You walking, too?’

  Small rivers of sweat trickled down Eileen’s face as she panted, ‘I didn’t intend bloody walkin’ till I saw you. Yer can’t half move, kid! Yer like a bloody whippet!’ She grinned and linked her arm through Mary’s. ‘Yer can help carry some of me weight.’

  Mary’s eyes slid sideways. Over the last eighteen months Eileen had been a very good friend to her. She lived in the same street as Bob, but Mary had only really got to know her when she started work in the munitions factory and had been put on the same machine as Eileen. That first day had been terrible. The huge conveyor belt looked like a monster and the noise on the shop floor was deafening. It was so different to working behind a shop counter, Mary thought she’d never get used to it. And she wouldn’t have done if Eileen, fifteen years her senior, hadn’t taken her in hand and shown her the ropes.

  ‘What made yer decide to walk to the Bull, kid?’ Eileen always looked untidy, as though she’d dashed out of the house without even running a comb through her mousey coloured, straggly hair. The hem on her shabby, grey swagger coat had come undone in places and was hanging down. And her black, flat heeled shoes looked as if they’d fall to pieces if they saw a duster or polish. ‘Won’t yer get enough standin’ on yer feet in work?’

  ‘I felt like some fresh air.’ Mary looked straight ahead. ‘Bob was home and I was late getting to bed.’

  ‘Home on leave, is he?’

  ‘He had to go back this morning. He only had a twenty-four pass.’

  ‘Bloody hell! Wasn’t worth coming home for.’ Eileen noticed Mary’s pale face. ‘Course it was worth it! When yer in love, ten minutes is worth it.’

  ‘It was embarkation leave. He’s expecting to be sent overseas.’

  ‘Poor bugger! The sooner this bloody war’s over, an’ all our lads are home, the better.’

  They were passing Woolworths on Walton Vale and Eileen pulled Mary to a halt. ‘Cissie Nolan’s on the sweet counter ’ere. I’ll see if I can cadge some Liquorice Allsorts off her.’

  ‘Our bus is in,’ Mary protested. ‘You won’t have time.’

  Eileen pulled free. ‘Two shakes o
f a lamb’s tail, kid!’

  Mary kept her eye on the factory bus standing outside the Black Bull pub. If it went without them they’d be late clocking in. But within seconds Eileen reappeared, grumbling, ‘Just my bloody luck! She’s at her break!’

  ‘I’ll go ahead,’ Mary was already running. ‘I’ll keep the bus till you get there.’ She was waiting on the platform when Eileen came along, gasping for breath. Pulling herself aboard by the hand rail, Eileen waved Mary ahead of her. ‘You go first, kid, and I’ll sit on the outside so me backside can hang over the seat.’

  Mary was turning sideways in the seat to give her friend more room, when she felt a dig in the ribs. Her eyes followed Eileen’s finger pointing to a couple passing the bus window. The man was an American soldier and the woman clinging to his arm was laughing up into his face. ‘Look at that brazen bitch!’ Eileen’s voice carried the full length of the bus and the loud chattering stopped as all eyes focused on the target of Eileen’s temper. ‘Her feller’s out there fightin’ for his country and she’s knockin’ it up to anyone in trousers.’ Eileen lowered her voice. ‘She deserves a bloody good hidin’, and she’ll get it if her feller finds out what she’s been up to.’

  Mary eyed the big woman with genuine affection. God knows, Eileen had more than her share of worry, but she never complained. Her husband, Bill, had been taken prisoner in the fighting in Crete, and all Eileen had been told by the War Office was that he was in a prisoner of war camp. ‘Don’t you ever get fed-up, Eileen? If I had three kids to look after, and come out to work, I’d never stop moaning.’

  Eileen ran her fingers through her hair, making it stand on end. ‘Moaning wouldn’t get me anywhere, kid. Anyroad, I’ve got me mam to help with the kids, so we manage all right.’

  They showed their passes to the security guards at the gates of the Kirkby factory, and Eileen linked her arm through Mary’s. ‘There’ll be a lot of poor sods in for a shock when this war’s over, I can tell yer! There’s a woman livin’ next door to me auntie, and guess what? She had a baby last week, and her feller’s been away for fourteen months.’ Eileen whipped her clock card from the rack and punched it in the machine. ‘I’d like to be a fly on their wall when she tries to talk her way out of that!’

  The noise in the cloakroom was deafening, with thirty women all talking at once. Mary hung her coat under a sign CARELESS TALK COSTS LIVES, and grinned when Eileen’s voice rose above the din. ‘Bloody hell! It’s like walkin’ into a chicken coop with all the cacklin’ going on.’

  ‘Hark at her!’ Maisie Phillips had been talking to her friend, Ethel Hignet, when she heard Eileen’s words. Maisie was small and thin, with bleached blonde hair, a heavily powdered and rouged face, and bright orange Tangee lipstick on her thick, full lips. It was difficult to guess Maisie’s age, but according to Eileen she’d been thirty-nine for ten years. Her friend Ethel was a foot taller, thin as a bean pole, with overpermed, frizzy black hair. Her face was devoid of colour and her ill-fitting false teeth clicked every time she spoke. ‘If we sound like chickens, Ethel,’ Maisie asked, ‘what would you say she sounded like?’

  ‘Cock of the North.’ Ethel’s teeth left her gums, then clicked back into place.

  Eileen’s figure wasn’t so noticeable in her loose coat, but without it her huge body seemed to be fighting to get out of the too tight dress. ‘Don’t mention cocks, Ethel; it brings back too many memories.’ Laughing at her own joke, Eileen held her tummy while her whole body shook and her eyes disappeared behind the folds of flesh on her cheeks.

  ‘What does her bust remind you of, Maisie?’ Ethel’s head was tilted. ‘It reminds me of two barrage balloons floating in the wind.’

  ‘Oh yeh!’ Maisie giggled as she eyed the bouncing mounds. ‘I wondered where I’d seen them before.’

  ‘Yer only jealous, Maisie Phillips.’ Eileen wheezed. ‘’Cos yours are as flat as pancakes.’

  Maisie shrugged. ‘Aye, I could do with a bit of your bust. Even Mae West would look flat chested next to you.’

  The women had formed a circle around the three who were guaranteed to give them a laugh and put them in a happy frame of mind for the eight-hour shift ahead. Mary stood outside the circle … too shy to join in. But she enjoyed the exchange and when she walked with Eileen on to the shop floor she was feeling much more cheerful.

  The women on morning shift left and Mary and Eileen took up their positions on each side of the long conveyor belt. Their job was to pick out any faulty shells as they passed down the conveyor. It was a monotonous job, but you needed to be alert all the time. Letting a faulty shell go through could cost the life of a soldier. Sometimes the women wrote messages on the shells to let the ‘lads’ know everyone at home was thinking about them. Eileen’s messages and crude drawings were always rude and they made Mary blush, but they were guaranteed to bring a smile to the face of a homesick soldier. Everyone working in the munitions factory was conscious of how important their job was. You couldn’t fight a war without ammunition, so working overtime was part of the war effort and no-one complained.

  Mary was thinking about Bob as she watched the shells go by. He’d be back at camp now, and if he wrote right away she’d get a letter the day after tomorrow. On the other side of the machine Eileen was taking the mickey out of one of the labourers who was replacing the full trolley of faulty shells with an empty one. ‘How d’yer manage yer love life on this shift, Willy?’

  Willy Turnley was thirty-nine years of age and would never be called up because of his asthma. He was a small, thin, sickly looking man, with beady brown eyes and large, yellow coloured teeth. He’d lost all the hair from the top of his head, so he let the sides grow long and combed them over in an attempt to hide the baldness. He thought he was God’s gift to women, and Eileen liked nothing better than to pull his leg. One of the wheels on the trolley had a mind of its own, wanting to go in a different direction to the others, and Willy bent to fix it before answering. ‘I don’t do so bad! If I get away handy I can get to Barlows Lane before the last waltz.’ He pushed down the packet of five Woodbines sticking out of the breast pocket of his overalls and showed his yellow teeth in a grin. ‘It’s the last waltz that’s important, yer see.’

  ‘Always get a click, do yer, Willy?’ Eileen’s eyes slid from the conveyor. ‘I bet the girls queue up for yer to take them home.’

  ‘I can’t complain.’ He smirked. The war was the best thing that had ever happened to Willy. With the shortage of men, even he could ‘cop off’.

  As she turned back to the conveyor, Eileen saw their supervisor walking towards Mary. She leaned forward and bawled, ‘Ay out! Here comes lover boy.’ Mary glared, but didn’t have time to answer before Harry Sedgemoor was standing beside her. She’d known Harry all her life because they lived only a few doors away from each other. But he was five years older, so had never been one of their gang. She knew he’d tried to join the Army but had been turned down because of perforated ear drums. He was a tall handsome man, with jet black hair, deep brown eyes, a strong jaw, white teeth and a dimple in his chin. Unmarried, he was the target for every female in the inspection department … even the married ones. They fell over themselves to flirt with him, but although he was pleasant with everyone, as far as Mary knew he had never been out with any of the women he worked with.

  Harry checked every conveyor twice during each shift, and if he stayed longer by Mary’s machine she put it down to their being neighbours. But Eileen had noticed the hungry look in his eyes when he was near Mary and she pulled her friend’s leg about it.

  ‘Hello, Harry.’ Mary glanced at him briefly. ‘Everything all right?’

  Harry nodded. ‘How are things with you?’ Someone had told him they’d seen Bob yesterday, and he waited now to see if Mary would tell him. But when she walked down the conveyor, saying over her shoulder, ‘I’m fine!’ he had little option but to carry on to the next machine.

  As soon as he was out of earshot, Eileen clapped her hands to attract M
ary’s attention. ‘He doesn’t half fancy you, yer know! Yer better watch out!’

  Mary shook her head vigorously. ‘Knock it off, will you, Eileen! It’s not like that at all! I’ve known him all me life and he’s like a big brother.’

  Eileen whooped. ‘There’s nowt brotherly about his feelings for you, my girl! He wouldn’t need much encouragement to push Bob’s nose out of joint.’

  ‘Fat chance!’ Mary huffed. ‘He’d be wasting his time.’

  ‘Time is something he’s got plenty of.’ Eileen’s voice never seemed to lose its volume, no matter how long she shouted. ‘He’s not a bad catch, yer know. There’s plenty of women would give their eye teeth for him to look at them the way he looks at you. He’s handsome, got a good job, and, more important, he’s here!’

  Mary tapped a finger on the side of her head to indicate she thought Eileen was barmy for thinking Harry Sedgemoor could hold a candle to her Bob.

  After their half hour dinner break the rest of the shift flew over and it seemed no time at all before they were stepping off the bus and Eileen was walking to the bottom of Mary’s street with her. ‘One more shift then I’m off for two glorious days. Ain’t that a lovely thought?!’ Her voice loud enough to wake the dead, she yelled. ‘Ta-ra, kid! See yer tomorrow!’ The words were no sooner out of her mouth than the air-raid siren started. ‘Oh, Christ, the buggers are at it again! I better get a move on and help me mam get the kids to the shelter.’

  Mary was already running up the street. Doors were opening and families pouring out to go to the safety of the Corporation shelter in the park. Children too small to hurry were being swooped up into arms, while the older ones were urged to move more quickly. Searchlights lit up the sky and as Mary neared her home she saw her mother standing on the doorstep.